NEWS of the recent Andes virus (ANDV) outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius has understandably triggered concern among many people. Reports of multiple deaths, combined with social media discussions about passengers returning to their home countries after leaving the vessel, have revived memories many hoped had been left behind after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The reaction is understandable. Covid-19 changed the way societies respond to news about infectious diseases. For many people, any report involving an unfamiliar virus, overseas outbreaks, or international travel now immediately raises the same unsettling question: Could this become another global pandemic?

However, from a virology and public health perspective, not every virus behaves the same way, and not every outbreak carries the same pandemic potential.

That distinction matters.

The Andes virus belongs to the hantavirus family, a group of viruses typically associated with rodents as their natural hosts. Unlike SARS-CoV-2, which spreads very efficiently through respiratory droplets and aerosols in everyday public settings, the Andes virus has a much more limited transmission pattern. It depends heavily on a specific rodent species found mainly in parts of South America to persist in nature.

In virology, this ecological dependence is important because it places natural limits on how far and how easily the virus can spread geographically.

This is one of the key scientific differences often overlooked when people compare every new outbreak to Covid-19.

The Andes virus is unusual among hantaviruses because human-to-human transmission has been documented previously. However, available evidence suggests that such transmission is relatively rare and usually involves prolonged close contact, often within households or among family members. It does not spread with the same efficiency seen during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, when even brief encounters in enclosed spaces or public transport could lead to widespread transmission.

Put simply, the Andes virus does not possess the same biological “engine” for rapid community spread.

Another important difference lies in its genetic behaviour. One of the major challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic was the rapid evolution of the coronavirus through mutations, producing successive variants within relatively short periods. Hantaviruses, including the Andes virus, are generally more genetically stable.

From a public health standpoint, this is reassuring because it allows scientists and health authorities to predict viral behaviour more reliably and maintain the effectiveness of existing diagnostic tools for longer periods.

This does not mean the virus should be dismissed lightly.

Individuals infected with the Andes virus can develop Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS), a serious illness affecting the lungs and cardiovascular system. Early symptoms often resemble common viral infections, including fever, muscle aches, headaches, and fatigue, before progressing in some cases to breathing difficulties and severe respiratory complications.

However, there is an important difference between a virus capable of causing severe illness in individuals and one capable of overwhelming healthcare systems through explosive transmission.

Covid-19 became a global crisis not only because it could cause death, but because it spread extraordinarily quickly across populations. Hospitals around the world faced sudden surges of patients within short periods, placing healthcare systems under immense strain. At present, there is no strong evidence suggesting the Andes virus has the same capacity for widespread, uncontrolled transmission.

Ecology also matters more than many people realise.

The rodent species most closely associated with the Andes virus does not exist in Malaysia. This significantly reduces the likelihood of natural transmission occurring locally. In infectious disease science, understanding the relationship between a virus and its natural host is often just as important as monitoring the number of reported cases.

For this reason, current risk assessments by organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which continue to classify the global threat level as low, remain consistent with the available scientific evidence.

Perhaps the more important lesson from situations like this is not about fear, but perspective.

The Covid-19 pandemic taught societies to take infectious diseases seriously, and that awareness remains valuable. However, it also left many people emotionally conditioned to interpret every new outbreak through the lens of 2020. In reality, viruses differ greatly in how they spread, mutate, and sustain themselves within populations.

Public awareness is important. Panic is not.

As global disease surveillance becomes more advanced, reports of emerging viruses will likely become more common — not necessarily because the world is becoming more dangerous, but because we are now far better at detecting and monitoring outbreaks than before.

Understanding these differences calmly and scientifically may be one of the most important lessons we carry forward from the pandemic years. – May 25, 2026

Dr Muhammad Amir Yunus is a molecular virologist at PKTAAB, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), and may be reached at Alamat emel ini dilindungi dari Spambot. Anda perlu hidupkan JavaScript untuk melihatnya..

GUA MUSANG – Seorang ibu tunggal berdepan detik cemas apabila anak sungai di depan rumahnya naik mendadak ekoran hujan lebat dalam tempoh kira-kira 30 minit sebelum membanjiri rumahnya di Program Penempatan Masyarakat Setempat (PPMS) Tanah Putih di sini kelmarin.

Dalam kejadian kira-kira pukul 8.30 malam itu, Hayati Yahya, 43, berkata, dia tidak sempat menyelamatkan kebanyakan peralatan elektrik kerana tidak menyangka hujan lebat bertukar menjadi banjir kilat.

“Semuanya berlaku terlalu cepat. Ketika itu, air dalam rumah sudah separas betis dan banyak barang elektrik tidak dapat diselamatkan. Air mula surut kira-kira satu jam kemudian apabila hujan semakin reda kira-kira pukul 9.30 malam,” katanya.

Hayati memberitahu, kejadian itu merupakan kali kedua menimpa keluarganya sejak menetap di kawasan berkenaan sembilan tahun lalu bersama ibu dan dua anak.

“Walaupun sedih dan kecewa, saya reda kerana menganggap ini satu ujian menjelang Hari Raya Aidiladha. Selepas air mulai surut sekitar pukul 10 malam, saya bersama anak dan ahli keluarga lain terus membersihkan rumah.

“Saya terpaksa tutup kedai hari ini (semalam) kerana perlu mencuci rumah dan kemas barang yang ditenggelami banjir kilat. Selain rumah saya, tiga lagi rumah berhampiran turut terjejas akibat banjir kilat berkenaan,” katanya.

Sementara itu, Ketua Polis Daerah Gua Musang, Superintendan Sik Choon Foo berkata, beberapa jalan utama di daerah itu terpaksa ditutup sementara susulan hujan lebat dan limpahan air malam kelmarin. – KOSMO! ONLINE

WASHINGTON, May 26 — Some of the plants that make familiar landscapes recognizable may not ‌survive by century’s end as climate change becomes an increasingly important driver of species loss, according to scientists, reshaping and often shrinking suitable habitats that the plants need to survive.

Researchers modelled future ranges for numerous species of vascular plants, a category that accounts for almost all the world’s plants - those with water- and nutrient-carrying tissues. They looked at more than ‌67,000 species, meaning about 18 per cent of the world’s known vascular plants.

They found that 7 per cent to 16 per cent could lose more than 90 per cent of their range, placing them at high risk of extinction. Examples include Catalina ironwood, or island ironwood, a rare endemic California tree, bluish spike-moss from a plant lineage dating back more than 400 million years, and roughly one third of Eucalyptus species, one of Australia’s most recognizable plant groups.

The researchers came to their estimates after examining millions of records on plant locations as well as greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios for 2081-2100.

A plant’s habitat is not simply a place on a map, but the full array of conditions it needs: temperature, rainfall, soils, land use and landscape features such as shade.

“One way to picture this is to imagine plants trying to follow a moving ‘climate envelope.’ As temperatures warm, many species can shift northward or uphill to stay cool enough. But temperature is only part of the story,” Junna Wang, a Yale University postdoctoral researcher, and Xiaoli Dong, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis, said in joint comments to ‌Reuters.

Wang and Dong helped lead the study published in the journal Science.

In many places, the study indicated, climate change is shrinking these combinations, leaving fewer ⁠areas where all the conditions that a species needs still exist together.

For plants, movement, ⁠or dispersal, usually happens across generations, via seeds or spores carried by wind, water, animals or gravity. Yet ⁠when the researchers compared realistic movement with a scenario ⁠in which plants could reach any ⁠newly suitable habitat, extinction rates were very similar.

“If slow movement were the main problem, then allowing unlimited dispersal should dramatically reduce extinction risk. But that is not what we found,” Wang and Dong said.

That matters for conservation

“If dispersal limitation were the main driver, then strategies like assisted migration - physically helping species move to new areas - ⁠could solve much of the problem. But if climate change is reducing the amount of suitable habitat overall, then simply helping species move may not be enough,” they added.

The projected impacts vary by region. Cold-adapted plants in the Arctic may lose habitat as extreme cold climates shrink. Dry regions, including parts of the western United States and Mediterranean-climate regions, face risk from stronger drought, lower soil moisture and more frequent wildfires. In southern and eastern coastal Australia, coastlines may limit poleward shifts.

At the same time, local plant diversity could rise across about 28 per cent of Earth’s land surface as species move into newly suitable areas, including ⁠parts of the tropics and subtropics where increased rainfall - rather than temperature alone - could make conditions suitable for additional species, the researchers found.

They described this as a global reshuffling, with some species disappearing from parts of their historical range while others move into new areas, but said ⁠local gains do not mean plants are doing better overall.

These shifts could also create “novel communities” - combinations of plants that have not historically lived together but would begin encountering ⁠one another for the ⁠first time. How would these interactions play out? The researchers said they do not know.

Plants underpin most terrestrial ecosystems. They store carbon, stabilize soils, support wildlife and provide food, timber, medicines and other materials. So changes in plant diversity can have cascading effects on nature and people.

“If climate change reduces vegetation cover, ecosystems may absorb less carbon dioxide from the ‌atmosphere, which can further intensify warming. That creates a feedback loop in which climate change harms plants, and reduced plant cover/productivity in turn worsens climate change,” Wang and Dong said.

“Ultimately, protecting plant diversity is not only about conserving nature for its own sake - it is also about maintaining the ecological systems that support human societies,” they said. — Reuters 

PUTRAJAYA, 25 Mei: Pesawah di utara Semenanjung Malaysia dijangka dapat memulakan aktiviti penanaman padi dalam masa terdekat susulan bekalan air yang semakin pulih.

Menteri Pertanian dan Keterjaminan Makanan, Datuk Seri Mohamad Sabu berkata, ketika tinjauan beliau ke Perlis semalam, kawasan petak sawah didapati telah menerima bekalan air manakala paras air empangan juga menunjukkan peningkatan.

“Saya nampak semalam saya pergi ke Perlis, saya lalu dengan kereta dan nampak semua sawah telah ada air, barangkali mereka menunggu selepas Raya Haji dan akan mula menanam.

“Air di petak telah ada serta air empangan mula meningkat (dan) saya yakin mereka dapat lakukan dalam masa terdekat,” katanya selepas merasmikan Pusat Informasi Pertanian Kebuniti atau Gardentopia di Wisma Tani, hari ini.

Mohamad mengulas kebimbangan dibangkitkan Pertubuhan Persaudaraan Pesawah Malaysia (PeSAWAH) di kawasan Lembaga Kemajuan Pertanian Muda (MADA) semalam yang memaklumkan hanya kira-kira 10 peratus daripada 56,000 pesawah telah memulakan penanaman padi.

Situasi itu berpunca daripada kebimbangan terhadap bekalan air serta peningkatan kos operasi yang menyebabkan sebahagian besar pesawah masih belum memulakan aktiviti penanaman.

Mohamad dalam pada itu berkata, faktor cuaca sememangnya memberi kesan terhadap keputusan pesawah, namun keadaan semasa menunjukkan bekalan air kini semakin mencukupi.

“Keadaan perubahan cuaca ini bukan kita boleh cakap, kerana orang yang menanam mahu tanaman itu mendatangkan hasil.

“Tetapi melihat keadaan sekarang, saya agak air semua sudah mencukupi dan kita harap mereka dapat menanam selepas ini. MADA juga sentiasa memantau penanaman padi,” ujarnya lagi. -TVS